How to make a dotted line between the 2 staffs

• Jun 26, 2018 - 10:35

How to make a dotted line between the 2 staffs like on the picture down below?

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dotted line.jpg 39.34 KB

Comments

Several methods:

  • Take the straight line from the lines palette and edit it so it connects the 2 noteheads, then in Inspector change it from solid to dashed. Doesn't survive a relayout, but works with notes on the same beat.
  • Another method would be to use cross-staff notation and a glissando line (without text, dashed and without playback), has the advantage to survive relayouts.
  • A 3rd method would be a Note-anchored line (Add > Line > Note-anchored line), then in Inspector change it from solid to dashed. Also survives relayout and works across any staves.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

I just realized I've been using 2.2.1 for this thread. It worked in version 2.2.1 but was unfortunately broke in version 2.3. This is not good, because there are valid glissandos that transition between staves, especially on the harp, that should not require cross-staff notation to work.

I know this is an old question but I want to share a solution not mentioned here hoping someone finds this helpful.

IMHO, straight lines aren't suitable for the task because it's impossible to connect two notes in different staves precisely. Moreover, in the current Musescore version (3), automatic layout will heavily increase the space between staves when using diagonal lines.

Glissando isn't the right tool either because it implies an unintended performance direction in this precise case. This may be an issue when exporting your score to said MusicXML.

My solution is to (mis)use slurs. Because they are Bézier curves, it's easy to turn them into straight lines by entering the edit mode and to change the curvature. At last, change the line style to "dashed" and you're fine.

In reply to by maximumspatiu1

There is a better way still. Hidden at the bottom of the menu Add->Lines there is the Note Anchored Line. Select a note, ctrl+click the other note then select this option and you will have a line drawn from one note to another. It has all of the properties of any other line, so you can make it dashed, dotted or solid as you like.

In reply to by mike320

Thanks! While the placement of that note anchored lines is indeed easier, making them dashed delivers unsatisfactory visual results: one need to resort to "custom dashed" style and to tune stroke length and distance manually for each and every angle. This makes note anchored lines impractical and slow to deal with.
It looks like there is still room for improvement here (i.e. automatic stroke adjustment like it's done for slurs)...

In reply to by Jubinell

Ah. The actual issue is that the notes have to be on different beats, otherwise the line has zero duration. Can you explain the purpose of the one you want to draw? As a pianist myself, it's not at all clear what a line connecting those notes would be trying to show me. But depending on its purpose, there is probably a more standard way of achieving the result.

In reply to by Jubinell

Notes directly vertically above/below one another (and in the same system) are always to be played simultanously, I don't see any need to clarify this by a line?

The main purpose of that note-anchored line it to show a hand switching staves, like the left or right hand on Piano to move to the upper/lower staff.
Or a Melody switchging from e.g. Tenor to Alto.
In either case the notes would be on a different beat

In reply to by Jubinell

It might help if you posted the actual score. I can't recall ever seeing one in which such a line would do anything but confuse the player, since it isn't standard notation at all. But anyhow, if I needed to do something like this, I'd just add a line as text or as a symbol or a graphic, seems simpler. for instance, use a barline symbol from the Symbols palette, or the box drawing Unicode symbols from the Special Characters palette.

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